im: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
and next day he was arrested.

Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the
reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.

Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism
which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This
patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor,
blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years
entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they
went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so
bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its
attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and assassins confined in the
same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their
families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre without the peace of the
dead.'

The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
on the Mantuans. The fate of